Cincinnati Police Impounding Cars Because They Have Big Rims!!

reply to post by ProphecyPhD


Oh good lord.. Any officer enforcing that stupid ordinance needs to be suspended pending criminal charges of theft, as well as violating the civil rights of the person who owns the vehicle. While there are laws on the books that require standards on a vehicle, the law for this was NEVER intended to be used in this manner. Its on the books to act as a safety standard, not a rule to illegally seize vehicles.

A judge needs to throw the charges out on everyone who has been targeted by this and force the return of the vehicle, reimburse the victims for any loss of money for fines / penalties / towing fees / lost work as well as creating an undue hardship.

Then they need to be investigated by the FEds for violating their civil rights by misusing a law in order to stop a vehicle and seize it.

This crap makes me sick and continues to force the all cops are evil mentality. If City Council is aware of this, then they need to be voted out of office first chance they get.

As far as the vehicle searches, she is correct, as vehicles in police custody have to be inventoried (varies by state / locality). Still, anything found should be thrown out since it was illegally sezied in the first place since the premis of the traffic was based on abuse of a law that was not intended for use in this manner.

Secondly authorizing the city impound to inspect the vehicle without authoirzation from the owner is BS as well, and appears to benothing more than a secondary revenue generating attempt. They are not empowered to perform vehicle inspections in that manner, nor are they allowed to charge for a NON required step.

This is nothing more but legalized robbery.... and since the officers force the issue, I would say its first degreee / top level felony for using force to seize the item based on the traffic stop itself.

reply to post by Arkansas


You are very correct about bumper height: as it does factor in .
1: if you hit someone “in a lifted vehicle” they are more likely to be run over than roll on the hood by the time you brake, a lot more harm done to the person being hit.
2: if you are rear ended and you’re in a lifted vehicle, the vehicle hitting you is going under your car or you car is going directly into the cab area. (Decapitation)
NOW….as for the shocks and whatnots: most all people putting on big rims do have to redo all suspension, steering bars because the car won’t fit the larger rims without upgraded undercarriage.
And traction …….you gain twice as much than a set of factor rims and tires, as the added weight and the wider width of the aftermarket rims require a wider tire, which has more surface area on the road.

As for braking, I can go alone with that also, as being a little “extra” strain on the brakes.
My personal opinion: Is that these big wheels DO not just fly off the car as the officer said in the video (so retarded) , but this law is just being enforced to make money for the city, simple as that. (maybe a little more agendas) Completely uncalled for.

out here every weekend its a street thing where ppl block the streets off and there usually over 1000 modded cars out racing, drifting, swanging, hanging out. and this is a EVERY weekend thing and always on the same street yet police never do anything about it (not saying they dont try) because its always so many ppl and hard to tell whos doing wrong and whos jus watching, one of the reasons i like cali

(its not jus a black thing either, its all races out there)

Vehicles with those RIDICULOUSLY, MASSIVELY OVERSIZE wheels on them should be fined or confiscated under a newly created law called a 'Roadways Eye-sore' crime...

They just look FREAKEN' RIDICULOUS and if the drivers dont realize this than there is something wrong with them.

Originally posted by pplrnuts
Vehicles with those RIDICULOUSLY, MASSIVELY OVERSIZE wheels on them should be fined or confiscated under a newly created law called a 'Roadways Eye-sore' crime...

They just look FREAKEN' RIDICULOUS and if the drivers dont realize this than there is something wrong with them.

this is the EXACT reason why feel it's racism.

Originally posted by ashtonkusher


(its not jus a black thing either, its all races out there)

I'm sure white people trying to act black do this all the time also. It's pathetic, but funny at the same time.

Originally posted by pplrnuts
Vehicles with those RIDICULOUSLY, MASSIVELY OVERSIZE wheels on them should be fined or confiscated under a newly created law called a 'Roadways Eye-sore' crime...

They just look FREAKEN' RIDICULOUS and if the drivers dont realize this than there is something wrong with them.

There is that...as well as the safety concerns,

"adding a set of big wheels can increase 60-0-mph stopping distance by as much as 20 feet. That can mean the difference between stopping short and being killed in an accident." Taken from Arkansas quote.

reply to post by ProphecyPhD


Cops are pigs, we all know this. I like to think of cops as two different types of people:

The kid in high school that no one liked and beat up because they said annoying things, dressed like an ass, and completely lacked social skills of any kind. They become cops to be pompous asshats to the rest of us in a life long struggle of insecurity, anger management issues, lack of social skills to make it through college so used their HS diploma or GED to get a "career" that allowed them to exert their short comings on unsuspecting people.

Or..

The kid in high school that played on the football team, beat up kids for their lunch money, thought they were tough !%! walking down the halls.. So they join the "force" because they couldn't get into college for lack of intelligence, got fat and lazy and like the nerds they beat up suffered a life long frustration of short comings that could be taken out on unsuspecting people. Irony is that they end up on the same side picking on everyday people.

So if you're a complete failure at life and you've no where to turn, especially if you've just left the military then the answer is clear: Be a cop. Pull people over on their way home from work to fine them 3 days wages for not using their blinker. Beat up a few minorities because of some traumatic experience you had as a teenager left you with that insecurity issue. Walk around with a gun and aviators thinking you're cool, even though the rest of us know that you're really just a tool... I find it almost impossible to respect cops anymore.

Its all about who is driving the car.. I see cars like that all over and its usually thugs driving them. Call it profiling, bit thats the reality of life these days.


Some of those cars are probably unsafe. The Caddy in the video probably came with 15 or 16 inch rims from the factory. You bolt on a set of 22s and you seriously alter the way it handles and especially stops.

The same is true for trucks but you usually dont see brothers slinging rocks out of a lifted 4x4

Originally posted by The Great Day

Originally posted by pplrnuts
Vehicles with those RIDICULOUSLY, MASSIVELY OVERSIZE wheels on them should be fined or confiscated under a newly created law called a 'Roadways Eye-sore' crime...

They just look FREAKEN' RIDICULOUS and if the drivers dont realize this than there is something wrong with them.

There is that...as well as the safety concerns,

"adding a set of big wheels can increase 60-0-mph stopping distance by as much as 20 feet. That can mean the difference between stopping short and being killed in an accident." Taken from Arkansas quote.

edit on 7-4-2011 by The Great Day because: (no reason given)

it also means they wont drive as fast, most of the time theyre driving slow to make sure EVERYONE sees them in the car, and cmon if u had them would u drive fast when u know u can mess them up? im pretty sure theyre expensive

so its good to have them and bad win/win imo

In some vehicles, the oversize wheels can make them more top-heavy and handle poorly. Just because a wheel fits, it doesn't mean the steering or suspension geometry is designed for it. So there is that aspect, even if the wheels are DOT certified.

Still, most drivers that kit their cars out with big rims drive a lot more easier. Less racing, more cruising. However, such a kit does lower the threshold for what a cop could see as reckless driving and may attract other unwanted attention. I'm sure those who have the hobby are well aware of the trade-off. However if driving normally and not doing anything stupid (like waking up everybody with their stereo at 2AM) or having something like too much tint on the windows, they should be allowed to cruise like that.

The thing is, adding such bling to a car isn't cheap. The guys having their cars impounded for it are likely able to afford a good lawyer. Get together with your car club or whatever, and instead of doing a build out of another car - get somebody who can build you a good case to bring to court and get your stuff back. (ie: If you have a clean driving record, current insurance/registration, and no other outstanding issues with that vehicle, you've already got a good start.) Make it expensive. If the city gets burned by this, it's much less likely they'll hassle people later on.

I have personal experience with Cincinnati. I have seen some of these cars that were impounded by the police.
1.The bottom of the cars are 3 feet off the ground.
2.They take two lanes to turn a corner.
3.The owners have no discernable source of income.

They don’t need racial profiling in Cincinnati. If you were to check the statistics, there is terrible crime problem there. Mostly black on black. If you do a quick Google search you will find a link to an article where they list over 600 gun involved crimes in the first 3 months of 2010. And that’s for a population of less than 300,000. Most of the pictures shown for victims are mug shots.

Is it still profiling when the victim and the criminal are both black?

reply to post by ProphecyPhD


Great!!

In many cases these rims are not DOT approved, and neither are the tires. Before starting government work, I was a District Manager for a large tire and rim retailer. There are often releases that have to be signed before these things can go on the cars. Sometimes we couldn't even put them on the cars, because the liability was too great, so we would just mount up the tires on the rims, and then send them home with the purchaser to be installed on his own.

They are certainly dangerous, they change the handling of the car drastically, they wear out the hinge points, suspension parts, steering knucles, etc. It is almost impossible to properly align a car with those rims on it. The rotational inertia is changed drastically and braking systems become far too undersized. They rims have a tendency to have too much leverage for the lug bolts, and so they snap them and fly off.

I was actually walking into a wing shop one day, I hear a metallic scrape, I look up and a rim is bouncing towards me. I freeze for an instant with the deer in the headlights look, then I jump back, the 100lb rim and tire doing about 30 mph hits the brick wall in front of me, bounces off, smashes into a parked car and and finally comes to a rest.

They are dangerous, and they are already illegal, this is just a matter of enforcing existing laws. Good!